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Sooners display their best, worst

NORMAN (AP) — In a matter of two weeks, No. 7 Oklahoma has shown what it looks like at its best and at its worst.

The Sooners were dominated on their home field by an unranked opponent, then came back seven days later on the road to blow out a previously undefeated team ranked in the top 10.

So, which one is the real Oklahoma?

“I think we still haven’t seen the real OU team,” receiver Jaz Reynolds said Tuesday. “We have to still put 60 minutes together. (Against Texas) Tech, we came out very flat and they just came out and whooped us. That’s a lesson to us that we have to come out on edge every time and play like our hair’s on fire.”

The Sooners have proven that there’s a fine line even the nation’s top teams walk between greatness and mediocrity. Texas Tech led 31-7 on Owen Field before Oklahoma rallied to close the final margin of defeat to 41-38 two weeks ago.

Then, Landry Jones and Co. scored 44 straight points against the rugged Kansas State defense to win 58-17 last weekend in what coach Bob Stoops called “one of the more complete wins as a team that we’ve had in quite a while.”

But there’s nothing special the Sooners (7-1, 4-1 Big 12) did to go from completely awful one week to completely awesome the next.

“That’s the type of performance that we’re capable of and that’s what we’re shooting for, and some days you get those and some days you don’t,” said Jones, who had a school-record 505 yards passing against K-State. “So, you’ve got to be able to play in every type of situation. When it’s not going good, you’ve got to get it going good. And when it is, you’ve got to keep doing what you’re doing.”

Starting with Saturday’s game against Texas A&M (5-3, 3-2), the challenge the rest of the way is to play consistently at that high level. It should help that Stoops expects both center Ben Habern (broken forearm) and cornerback Jamell Fleming (knee surgery) back from injuries this week.

“I know we’ve got to be mentally tough all the time. That’s the sign of a championship team,” co-offensive coordinator Jay Norvell said. “I think we’ve shown that in the past. I think we’ve shown some humanness in the past, too.”

It was a total breakdown that led to the Texas Tech loss, snapping the nation’s longest home winning streak after 39 games and six years. The offense couldn’t get a first down for the whole second quarter, the defense allowed 572 yards of total offense and kicker Michael Hunnicutt missed two field goals that proved critical.

That all changed the next Saturday, when Oklahoma showed it wasn’t bowing out of the Big 12 championship race — or the national championship picture — just yet.

“I think guys were on edge, guys were ready to play, guys were wanting to go out there and be ready to fight for what we wanted, and we wanted to win that game,” Jones said. “So, there’s just a couple different mentalities going into two different games and it showed.”

With Kansas State and Clemson falling from the ranks of the unbeaten, Oklahoma is already sensing that its BCS championship goals might not be gone for good. The Sooners are sixth in the BCS standings and first among teams with a loss.

“I think we learned a valuable lesson. We had to learn it,” Norvell said. “It’s unfortunate that we had to learn it but we’ve got to move forward from that now and make sure that it doesn’t happen again, and make the best out of what we’ve got right now.”

That loss at home to an unranked opponent could still haunt the Sooners if the end of the year finds pollsters trying to sort out a group of one-loss teams by the defeat easiest to stomach.

“It bothers us every day. Every day at practice we think about it, how we have that one blemish on our record and how we got whooped at home,” Reynolds said. “We’re the team that broke the home winning streak, and it’s in the back of our heads every practice.”

Reynolds said one change for the better has been a relief of the tension that had been building up during a season that started out with championship-or-bust expectations.

”I feel like this loss against Texas Tech really made us more aware of what we need to do and we’re not as complacent anymore,” running back Roy Finch said. “We know that we can get beat. We’re not invincible. I feel like this loss has really helped us moving forward.”